Retired Cop Claims Canada is Unsafe

Canada is no saint. In fact, I will be the first one to admit that we regularly make mistakes whether it’s with our immigration policies, our lackadaisical attitude towards international politics, and any other number of offensive things that we do on the regular. And our government? Don’t even get me started. The Harper administration is the worst thing that has ever happened to this country, so at this very moment, I’m not the most proud Canadian at the moment, but there are things that I do love about this country. One of those things is that Canada is not a gun-slinging wild, wild west like the United States of America. It is not acceptable to be packing while you shop for organic milk at the grocery store. You don’t have to worry about some maniac running you off the road with an assault rifle. And most importantly, there are strict gun licensing laws that prevent Joe Blow from walking into a Walmart to pick up enough ammo to shoot up a movie theater with enough left over to blow up their own apartment building. I’m not saying that Canada hasn’t had its fair share of gun tragedies (the shooting at Polytechnique in Quebec), but our statistics are nothing compared to our neighbors to the south.

Unfortunately, not everyone agrees with Canada’s attitude towards guns. In early August, a retired police officer from the State of Michigan was vacationing in Alberta with his wife. The cop and his wife were enjoying Nose Hill Park just outside of Calgary when they were approached by two young men. The young men asked Wait Wawra, the cop, if he had been to the Calgary Stampede yet. Wawra ignored the two young men, and they asked their question again. In a scathing letter to the Calgary Herald, Wawra wrote “I quickly moved between these two and my wife, replying, ‘Gentlemen, I have no need to talk with you, goodbye.’” He further wrote that he felt that the men were being ‘menacing’ and “thanked the Lord Jesus Christ they did not pull a weapon of some sort.”

Yes, this actually happened, you are not reading an episode of Punk’d. Naturally officer Wawra’s letter was met with significant wrath, and rightly so. Wait Wawra represents everything that is wrong with gun laws in the United States, they’re far to lax. What’s even more frightening, is that this letter was written long after the shooting in Colorado. How you can look at that horrendous tragedy and say that he should have the right to pack heat? I’m sorry, but listen up America, you’ve got some serious homework to do. And you certainly don’t have a right to come up into my country, blow a perfectly harmless situation into something more than it was. Can you imagine if officer Wawra was an actual on-duty police officer and he had the opportunity to take his weapon out of his holster? Would we have two dead men on our hands?

This whole notion of the ‘right to bear arms’ is absurd. I’m not a politician, but I am a concerned citizen, and if the laws were to change in this country, and my government decided that every Tom, Dick and Harry could now carry a handgun, I’d be packing my bags. Canada is no angel, and we have our fair share of problems with guns. We definitely have some work to do, but I do walk the streets feeling much safer than if I were to walk down the street in some American city. So no, Mr. Wawra, you completely misread a situation, and if you don’t like our anti-gun laws, than stay home!